Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Review of Vicious Circle

Book #8. Vicious Circle,
by Mike Carey. Hardcover.

This is the sequel to Carey’s
The Devil You Know (reviewed here). Some time has passed since the prior novel,
and the dead have continued to make appearances across London. This has made
people with Felix Castor’s skills as a “freelance exorcist” necessary. But as
in-demand as his services are, his business is still struggling.

Along with consulting for the
local police, Castor has returned to his “supernatural services” business, but
he’s barely making ends meet. The action in this novel starts when a client
hires him to locate a stolen ghost – the whole “ghost thing” is still pretty
new, but this is not the way that ghosts are supposed to operate. Felix is also
trying to keep his eyes on an old friend in a private hospital, who is hosting
an ever-more disturbingly violent demon. A supernatural “colleague”
of Felix asks for his help when a local church is by a dark presence.

It turns
out that all of these events (and more) are not just connected, but they are
connected to Castor. And worse things are on their way. Many of the
characters that we met in the prior novel appear here, including Felix’s priest
brother and Juliet the succubus.

The specific plot in this book
is darker and more gruesome than in the prior novel, but this raising of the
stakes adds tension to the story. Carey’s ability to combine supernatural
action with compelling character moments makes this a highly readable novel. I
enjoy Carey’s comic book series The Unwritten, and have found his novel-writing
equally solid.

I enjoyed this read, and look
forward to picking up more novels in the series as time goes by.